Friday 14 December 2007 20.44 EST
First published on Friday 14 December 2007 20.44 EST

Fabio Capello was appointed as England coach last night following the conclusion of negotiations between his legal team and Football Association officials at Soho Square. The Italian, the 15th man and second foreigner to do the job since the war, will begin his £6.5m-a-year, four-and-a-half-year contract on January 7 and will meet the media on Monday.

Capello will be assisted by four Italians, though an Englishman will work with the assistants Franco Baldini and Italo Galbiati, the goalkeeping coach Franco Tancredi and fitness coach Massimo Neri. Sir Trevor Brooking will play a part in this appointment; Stuart Pearce, the England Under-21 coach, is the leading candidate.

Confirmation of the appointments came after Capello's representatives agreed with the FA over salaries for his support staff, who will be paid from a pool of money distributed by the coach. Capello's contract contains a break clause after the 2010 World Cup. He will give up his television commentary work with RAI Uno in Italy in the new year, though he is expected to fulfil commitments this weekend which mean he will not attend either the Liverpool v Manchester United or Arsenal v Chelsea match tomorrow.

None of the back-room team was formally described as a coach by the FA yesterday, indicating that, while Galbiati, Tancredi and Neri will be involved on the training pitch, Baldini, formerly technical director at Roma and Milan, may have a broader role. Despite concerns that Baldini's brief could overlap with Brooking's, the FA's director of football development was said to be comfortable with the appointments.

"Fabio Capello is widely recognised as one of the world's finest coaches," said Brooking, who worked with the FA chief executive, Brian Barwick, in the appointment process. "He has achieved huge success wherever he has worked and has the respect of everyone in football. We are excited about working with him over the coming years as we focus on qualification for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa."

The appointment is a victory for Barwick and his key advisor, Simon Johnson, who will regard the capture of a world-class coach 22 days after Steve McClaren was sacked as vindication of their approach. Having committed close to £30m, however, their fate is now tied to Capello's ability to galvanise the national side. "When we set out to recruit the new manager, we said we were committed to appointing a world-class candidate. In Fabio Capello we have that man," Barwick said last night.

At 4.50pm yesterday, after three days of intensive negotiations, Barwick informed board members and FA staff that the appointment was official. FA staff worked almost round the clock to capture Capello's signature by the weekend.

Few organisations outside government operate under such intense media scrutiny and, while the FA's media team, led by the communications director, Adrian Bevington, has coped manfully, there has been a sense that 24-hour news crews on the Soho Square doorstep and incessant calls from the written media contributed to a desire to get the deal done promptly.

Serious negotiations with Capello began only on Sunday but, with face-to-face talks going exceptionally well on Wednesday, the FA hoped to have the new man presented to the media by yesterday afternoon. That prospect faded on Thursday as uneasy FA board members and the weight of paperwork slowed progress. The FA said there was no major issue at stake, stressing the complexity of preparing employment contracts in two languages.

The intervention of professional game representatives on the FA board may prove the most significant event for Barwick as it illustrates the difficulty of steering the organisation decisively. Asked to find a candidate, Barwick faced questions over Capello's all-Italian staff, the £6.5m salary apparently already agreed and the fact that the board was being consulted only by conference call. Some FA insiders privately characterise the disquiet as sour grapes from individuals who would like to have been more closely involved and point to the shambolic appointment of McClaren last year, a decision made by a nominations committee, as evidence of why the chief executive had to be in control of this appointment.

Barwick will face close questioning at next Thursday's scheduled board meeting, at which the new independent chairman of the FA, expected to be Sir Roy Gardiner, will be discussed. That meeting could yet prove stormy, with concerns in some quarters that the disquiet expressed on Thursday could crystallise into opposition to the National Football Centre at Burton-on-Trent.

The board had been expected to give the go-ahead to the controversial project which Brooking and others see as essential to the development of English coaches and players.